Built in 1869 amidst a boom in Clipper construction, Ambassador displayed the new- fangled composite design that hybridised wood and iron construction. One of the final engineering developments of the Age of Sail, the vessel would be finished the very year that the Suez Canal would be finished, heralding the ascendence of steam powered vessels for the first time. Where most British clippers were constructed on the Clyde, Ambassador was unusually laid in London and one can still visit the shipyard, the Lavender Docks in Rotherhithe, which survive to this day.
After the Suez Canal rendered their sails obsolete, clippers would transition to the Australian wool trade in the 1870s, sailing the great Southern Ocean on voyages still too far for the nascent steam engine. The huge rollers and frequent storms frequently tested these ships to their very limit; in 1877 an enormous wave would sweep the ships' master and four crew overboard and they tried to hold onto the steering wheel. It is easy to forget that for most of their existence these ships were a far cry from the few becalmed museum vessels one can still see today.
Dawson strikes a difficult balance between conveying the intricate detail of the vessel while also grounding it in the emptiness of the open ocean. While most clipper imagery tends towards adverse weather and
rough seas, Dawson instead opts to capture another facet of long voyages that Ambassador made to Australia and South America. Through a combination of cream, brown and orange tones, the artist bathes the ship in the warm light of the southern hemisphere: a far cry from the cool, harsh tones more commonly used in Marine Painting.
After a 30-year career as a merchant vessel, Ambassador was beached in 1899 on the remote southern coast of Chile. The eerily beautiful sight of its composite hull is still visible on the shore, not far from the Straits of Magellan she had so often plied. While almost all traces of her wooden elements have long since disappeared, the remaining iron skeleton provides a striking survival of Victorian shipbuilding that the intrepid traveller can still see to this day.